


Who Are You?

by define_serenity



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: F/M, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-14
Updated: 2009-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-31 15:02:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3982474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/define_serenity/pseuds/define_serenity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Who are you today, Caroline?" he asks her loudly, readjusting his hand around his gun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who Are You?

He’s got her at gunpoint when he finds out the Dollhouse has kept its eyes on him for quite a while now. He’s angry, furious, atthem, at his superiors, and right now, he’s angry at the woman who he knows to be Caroline, but doesn’t know it herself.

“Who are you today, Caroline?” he asks her loudly, readjusting his hand around his gun. “What did they make you into today? When are you going back? To be wiped, to be blank. What makes a person want to become a _nobody_?”

She stares at him, her eyes flaring with… a feeling, with something that comes from deep within and catches her new personality off guard. It’s her speed that surprises him, more than her strength and agility, but before he knows it she’s the one holding the gun. “I am  _not_  nobody,” she speaks strongly, and shuts him up immediately.

“Caroline?” he tries carefully, his hands raised, but the retaliating sentiment in her eyes disappears almost instantly.

“My name is  _Sarah_ ,” she sneers while she backs out of the room. But then she catches eye of something, herself, in the mirror.  _Caroline?_  It’s a split second thought that makes her frown and takes her aback.  _Prove you’re more than just an Echo_ . 

“Sarah,” she echoes, and walks away.

.

“Do you know who you are?” he asks her when her personality joins him at the bar. He’s been drinking, and in between he’s been watching her being groped on the dance floor.

“I like to drink.” She knocks back a full glass of booze, “I like to dance.” She throws back her hair and when she looks at him she raises an eyebrow, her eyes filled with fabricated desire, “And I think you can guess what else I like.” She takes a few steps closer as she bites down on her bottom lip, and then settles her body against his.

“Caroline?” he asks, again, one in a long line of questions to follow. He waits, but her answer comes almost instantly.

“Baby, I can be whoever you want me to be.” She smiles big, feeling confident and sure of herself and staring at him as if she  _can_  actually become anyone he wants her to be.

He walks away, because all he needs her to be is one person, a real person, not an amalgam of the others she’d been imprinted with. He only needs her to be Caroline.

.

“Tell me who you are,” he asks her when he finds Echo; he knows he’s being pushy and can clearly see that she’s confused, but he pushes it even further through. She looks helpless, her brown eyes are big and questioning, begging him for something. A voice maybe. “Do you know who I am?” he leans in to meet her eyes.

“You’re tall,” she smiles, dimly, blankly, stating the obvious just like a child would.

“Caroline?” he asks the woman in front of him, but she doesn’t respond to it. He sighs and hangs his head.

“My name is…” she starts, but a feeling seeps in that she doesn’t understand.  She holds her words back, they’re caught somewhere between her mind and her lips, and once upon a time she would have described this sentiment as hesitation. “My name is…”

She doesn’t know.

 

 

**\- fin -**

 


End file.
